Book picks similar to
Snatched by Mandasue Heller
mandasue-heller
crime
thriller
mystery
Island of Lost Girls
Jennifer McMahon - 2008
She watches, unmoving, as someone dressed in a rabbit costume kidnaps a young girl. Devastated over having done nothing, Rhonda joins the investigation. But the closer she comes to identifying the abductor, the nearer she gets to the troubling truth about another missing child: her best friend, Lizzy, who vanished years before.From the author of the acclaimed Promise Not to Tell comes a chilling and mesmerizing tale of shattered innocence, guilt, and ultimate redemption.
Girl A
Abigail Dean - 2021
She doesn't want to think about growing up in her parents' House of Horrors. And she doesn't want to think about her identity as Girl A: the girl who escaped, the eldest sister who freed her older brother and four younger siblings. It's been easy enough to avoid her parents--her father never made it out of the House of Horrors he created, and her mother spent the rest of her life behind bars. But when her mother dies in prison and leaves Lex and her siblings the family home, she can't run from her past any longer. Together with her sister, Evie, Lex intends to turn the House of Horrors into a force for good. But first she must come to terms with her siblings - and with the childhood they shared.
Billie Jo
Kimberley Chambers - 2008
Kimberley Chambers is a talent to match Martina Cole.From the Paperback edition.
Daughter
Jane Shemilt - 2014
The authorities launch a nationwide search with no success. Naomi has vanished, and her family is broken.As the months pass, the worst-case scenarios—kidnapping, murder—seem less plausible. The trail has gone cold. Yet for a desperate Jenny, the search has barely begun. More than a year after her daughter’s disappearance, she’s still digging for answers—and what she finds disturbs her. Everyone she’s trusted, everyone she thought she knew, has been keeping secrets, especially Naomi. Piecing together the traces her daughter left behind, Jenny discovers a very different Naomi from the girl she thought she’d raised.
The Catch
T.M. Logan - 2020
Ryan appears to be the perfect future son-in-law. There's just one problem. There's something off about Ryan. Something hidden in the shadows behind his eyes. And it seems that only Ed can see it.Terrified that his daughter is being drawn in by a psychopath, Ed sets out to uncover her fiancé's dark past - while keeping his own concealed. But no-one believes him. And the more he digs, the more he alienates her and the rest of the family who are convinced that Ryan is 'the one'.Ed knows different. For reasons of his own, he knows a monster when he sees one...
Trapped
Jacqui Rose - 2013
But they didn′t know they were from rival gangland families in London′s criminal underworld. Going public with their relationship would have brought them more trouble than they could handle, so for years they concealed the truth. But their house of cards won′t be safe for much longer.Maggie′s violent father Max has always been out for the Taylors′ blood and treats his own family with barely more sympathy. There′s a long-buried reason for the vendetta that no one talks about, a secret so shocking it could tear each family - and Maggie and Johnny - apart...A gritty story of bitter feuds and unbreakable bonds, Trapped is the perfect read for fans of Mandasue Heller and Martina Cole.
Sugar & Spice
Saffina Desforges - 2010
Based on research and details from the case of Robert Black, a UK serial killer, Sugar & Spice was deemed "Too controversial for the British market."100,000 + readers thought otherwise. Sugar & Spice is now one of the biggest-selling e-books in the UK of 2011.It has also just been voted as a 'Red Adept Reviews' 2011 indie award winner for mystery!If you like cosy crime, this is NOT for you.Sibel Hodge (author) called it "Patricia Cornwell meets Silence of the Lambs." The author draws heavily on the classic of the thriller genre, from Cornwell's Scarpetta and Thomas Harris through James Patterson, John Grisham, Dan Brown, Stieg Larsson and A.K. Alexander, to produce a truly unique and ground-breaking debut novel.Would you trust a convicted sex offender to help you find your daughter's killer? Claire did...Inspired by a news story of a man who begged a Judge to give him a longer sentence, because he knew he would harm another child if released without treatment, Sugar & Spice is meticulously researched, asking the questions society prefers not to have answered.At once disquieting and challenging, Sugar & Spice is car-crash reading.~It's every parent's worst nightmare: A child fails to return home. As hours turn to days, all they can do is hope. Some children never come back...Driven by the need to know why, a mother confronts the man accused of her daughter's murder, He presents a compelling defence, convincing Claire not only that he is innocent of harming her daughter, but that his previous convictions were not what they seemed.Teaming up with a second-year psychology student and a fourteen year-old truant schoolboy, Sugar & Spice is the story of a mother's fight to bring one man's reign of terror to an end.~Be warned: In Sugar & Spice not all things are nice...
Pretty Guilty Women
Gina LaManna - 2019
Four Confessions. One Murder.Something has gone terribly wrong at the Banks wedding. A man is dead. Four different women rush to offer confessions, each insisting that they committed the crime -- alone.Ginger is holding her family together by a thread, and this wedding weekend is not the fabulous getaway she anticipated.Kate has enough money to buy her way out of anything. Well, almost anything.Emily can't shake her reputation or her memories, and she's planning to drown this whole vacation in a bottle.Lulu's got ex-husbands to spare, and another on the way -- as soon as she figures out what the devil the current husband is up to behind her back.Why would they confess to the same murder? Only they know -- and they're not telling. This page-turning novel explores the depths of friendship and the truths we love to ignore.
Thick as Thieves
Sandra Brown - 2020
But by daybreak, their plan had been shot to hell. One of them was in the hospital. One was in jail. One was dead. And one got away with it.Arden Maxwell, the daughter of the man who disappeared all those years ago -- presumably with the money, after murdering his accomplice -- has never reconciled with her father's abandonment of her and her sister. After countless personal setbacks she decides to return to her family home near mysterious Caddo Lake, and finally get answers to the many questions that torment her. Little does she know, two of her father's co-conspirators -- a war hero and a corrupt district attorney -- are watching her every move.Ledge Burnet, a rebellious teen at the time of the heist, evaded his jail sentence by enlisting in the army. Now he's back in town to care for his ailing father -- and to keep his eye on the county's corrupt district attorney, whom he suspects was the real murderer. Although the two are bound to silence because of the crime they committed together, each has spent years waiting and hoping that the other will make a fatal misstep. But the arrival of their elusive accomplice's daughter, Arden, who may know more about the missing money than she's telling, sets them both on red alert. She ignites Ledge's determination to expose the D.A.'s treachery . . . and sparks a desire he wishes to deny.
I Let You Go
Clare Mackintosh - 2014
It all happened so quickly. She couldn't have prevented it. Could she?In a split second, Jenna Gray's world descends into a nightmare. Her only hope of moving on is to walk away from everything she knows to start afresh. Desperate to escape, Jenna moves to a remote cottage on the Welsh coast, but she is haunted by her fears, her grief and her memories of a cruel November night that changed her life forever.Slowly, Jenna begins to glimpse the potential for happiness in her future. But her past is about to catch up with her, and the consequences will be devastating . . .
The Bones of You
Debbie Howells - 2015
Soft‑petalled flowers that go to seed. The resolute passage of the seasons. Swallows that fly thousands of miles to follow the eternal summer.Children who don’t die before their parents.When Kate receives a phone call with news that Rosie Anderson is missing, she’s stunned and disturbed. Rosie is eighteen, the same age as Kate’s daughter, and a beautiful, quiet, and kind young woman. Though the locals are optimistic—girls like Rosie don’t get into real trouble—Kate’s sense of foreboding is confirmed when Rosie is found fatally beaten and stabbed.Who would kill the perfect daughter, from the perfect family? Yet the more Kate entwines herself with the Andersons—graceful mother Jo, renowned journalist father Neal, watchful younger sister Delphine—the more she is convinced that not everything is as it seems. Anonymous notes arrive, urging Kate to unravel the tangled threads of Rosie’s life and death, though she has no idea where they will lead.Weaving flashbacks from Rosie’s perspective into a tautly plotted narrative, The Bones of You is a gripping, haunting novel of sacrifices and lies, desperation and love.
The Woman Before Me
Ruth Dugdall - 2010
Luke had been dead for just three days.Rose Wilks' life is shattered when her newborn baby Joel is admitted to intensive care. Emma Hatcher has all that Rose lacks. Beauty. A loving husband. A healthy son. Until tragedy strikes and Rose is the only suspect.Now, having spent nearly five years in prison in Ipswich, Rose is just weeks away from freedom. Her probation officer Cate must decide whether Rose is remorseful for her crime, or whether she remains a threat to society. As Cate is drawn in, she begins to doubt her own judgement.Where is the line between love and obsession, can justice be served and, if so... by what means?